Nicola Scott: "I would be happy drawing Wonder Woman all day every day"

[Charlus]

Don´t know if it has been already posted. I looked for it, but I didn´t find it.

Anyway, to those who haven´t read it, it is a truly amazing interview to Nicola Scott about Wonder Woman: how she conceives her, how she chose her career based upon her love towards the character, what she thought about the pilot and what she expects from the upcoming movie.

It is a remarkable interview, and the way she portraits and envisions her is pretty much mine.


Here is the link: http://comicsbeat.com/interview-nico...oman-and-more/

Here, some highlights:

-What tends to happen is that you start narrowing down who she is to you, what these characters mean to you, so I narrowed her down to what she means to me, and as an idea she hasn’t let me down. That is one of the reasons why I feel like I haven’t grown out of the character, because she still speaks to me on that really sort of nostalgic level, but also just as an adult. I like her life philosophy.

-...for the last, oh gosh, it’s got to be probably about 15 years there has been a version of Wonder Woman that has been quite aggressive. She’s not really the Wonder Woman I relate to, she’s more of a Xena Warrior Princess version of Wonder Woman. It’s a fashion, and it’s a trend in comics. I see Wonder Woman, at her core, as quite compassionate. She has a lot of solidarity, and she is very inclusive, so despite being physically perfect, she’s more than that. What makes her relatable or approachable, despite this perfection, is that she is incredibly inclusive, and welcoming, and nurturing, you know, she is a earth mother and I have a lot of time for that. She is a woman from a race of women where, there is nothing but solidarity. They don’t have to rise up against anyone, they don’t have to fight from oppression from anybody, they don’t have to compete for attention with anybody. They are pure solidarity and I find that a really lovely way to see female sisterhood and I think that is something she will always aspire towards. She’s not really a superhero like Superman is a superhero, she is a warrior by training, but she by the time she comes to face a war, she is not really a warrior by experience. So it’s her nature, in any confrontation, to try and settle it down, to try and talk it down, to try and compromise and suggest other options other than brute force. If that doesn’t work, which quite often it won’t, she will just defend people that need defending and try to stop harm being committed, and if that doesn’t work she will always try to take the most submissive turn.

-When I was 28, I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life, because I’d finished with acting. I knew I wanted to do something creative for a career, but I wasn’t sure what. The skillset I had was that I could draw and I could sew, and out of a process of elimination I had got myself down to drawing, but I could not work out what I could do with that that would be satisfying to me, until I thought, if I have to draw the same thing all day every day, what do I want to draw?
And that was where Wonder Woman came in I was like, I thought it would be fun if I could just daw Wonder Woman every day. I had not considered it before because I don’t know anything about it but that is ridiculous because all the things I love exist there. Just because I didn’t know the industry wasn’t a good enough excuse. That was what I wanted to do, that is what I should be doing and so that was the initial spark and from that moment literally I started pursuing, learning about the industry, learning about what being an artist in that industry meant and pursuing that and facilitating goals as I went along.

-Talking about the next movie: I hope they remember she is a complex character, because the pilot they did make a couple of years ago, the David Kelly one — I don’t know if you have seen it — was appalling, it was really, really bad.
He didn’t understand the character, he’d just taken bits and pieces of her to make the TV character. I didn’t mind the casting because she was quite a big, tall, girl, but she was a little too American for me. Despite wearing an American flag Wonder Woman isn’t American. It was just a terrible waste of an opportunity, for Warner Brothers to finally, finally commit to injecting some money into a project, and it was badly conceived, and then pretty poorly executed.
There was a fight scene towards the end which had the potential of being pretty good, but other than that the characterization was awful they just painted her as a bad ass that didn’t fit in. That is the one thing she is not, just because she can be a bad ass doesn’t mean she is one, it is not a defining characteristic. Even though she is an outsider, no one feels that way about her — she is somebody everyone wants to be friends with, or feel protected by, she is like everyone’s big sister, everyone’s mum. Everyone feels a warmth from her. I think she will look amazing, primarily because Zac Snyder has a great eye for beauty and for visual dynamics and he really plays up the glamour of texture, shape, and form. I think the girl that they have cast is really pretty, I was incredibly happy they had chosen a non-American, their understanding of sexuality is different to the American understanding of sexuality. I think that is quite important because Wonder Woman is quite a sexy character and even her outfit is quite sexy but her personality does not broadcast that sex appeal. She wears that outfit because that is what she is comfortable in to fight, and because she comes from a society where women wear things like that normally. She has no discomfort or modesty with nudity. She is a pagan earth goddess character, she is very comfortable in her own skin and while being an incredibly beautiful person she would see beauty in everybody. I hope there is enough substance in the upcoming film, that generates more interest because it is from generating that interest she will get more material. Fingers crossed.

-There are people around in their 20s now who have barely heard of Wonder Woman and really wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a line up. Now I think that is a real shame, there are kids that I know that have never heard of Wonder Woman, and I make it my job to educate all the kids around me about Wonder Woman and with some of them it sticks and with some of them it doesn’t. She is the premier, biggest name, most iconic female super hero of all time there are so many people we aren’t familiar with her and that is pathetic, considering how well people know Superman and Batman.

[Dr. Poison]

Anytime she's ready to start, I'll take her!

[Charlus]

Anytime she's ready to start, I'll take her!

I am with you. How could anyone do not like this?

[richalex]

I feel her turn on the book was so short lived. I would love for her to come back and have a long run like Cliff Chiang.

[Sacred Knight]

Hopefully her hiatus from DC will be a short one (not due to any wishes of lack of success elsewhere), and she'll get another chance at Wonder Woman.

[Blacksun]

I feel her turn on the book was so short lived. I would love for her to come back and have a long run like Cliff Chiang.

yes...
Also nobody talks, but she was a hell of a good WW cosplayer.

IDK but Nicola ideas seems so different from what DC likes to do with the character, I really don't put high hopes of her returning. DC has a strange habit of putting good WW creative talent far away from her

[wonder39]

..aaaaand I love her even more now than I did before. She gets it.

[Dr. Hurt]

yes...
Also nobody talks, but she was a hell of a good WW cosplayer.

IDK but Nicola ideas seems so different from what DC likes to do with the character, I really don't put high hopes of her returning. DC has a strange habit of putting good WW creative talent far away from her

No, they do that in general. They drove away talent like Dini, Waid and Brubacker, Morrison (he just wont admit it and left in a professional way, just like he only said that he liked MoS but never raved about it like he did for Nolan's movies), Perez and others, while keeping horrible artists and writers around, even giving top writer jobs to artists who cant write to save their life. But hey, Morrison's Batman is divisive and all the people that hate it sure loved Daniel's cookiecutter "catch teh penguin" stories, so...

[richalex]

[OBrianTallent]

Nicola is an amazing artist and I am always surprised that DC has never given her a real shot at drawing the book. When it was announced that Azzerello and Chiang were leaving and then Nicola was rumored at leaving E2, I was REAAAALY hoping she would get the artist slot on the book. My dream team for this series would be Phil Jiminez and Nicola Scott. My little nerdboy inside would just pass out from excitement. But the adult realist knows DC would never go for anything like that as both creators have a vastly different idea of Diana than what DC is trying to sell right now Which is sad. I think both creators grew up with the same Wonder Woman that I did...Pre-Crisis and into George Perez's versions. That's the Wonder Woman I understand and know. This one running around now...yeah, not so much.

One day the pendulum will swing again and perhaps Nicola and I can both find the character we have been missing. Maybe she will even get to helm the ship for a little while. It would certainly be a beautiful book!

[Darius]

Hmmm... I like most of her style, but her faces aren't great IMO ... The emotions seem flat, WW's smile doesn't hit her eyes and seems forced, and lots of wide-mouth frowny-faced guys. But I'm not super familiar with her total body of work.

[Sacred Knight]

I'm not so sure she wouldn't have been given at least SM/WW if she hadn't decided to just ride out her contract. After all there's absolutely nothing to suggest it wasn't a decision of her own making. Its not like she's leaving with hard feelings or anything fo the linke.

[Blacksun]

No, they do that in general. They drove away talent like Dini, Waid and Brubacker, Morrison (he just wont admit it and left in a professional way, just like he only said that he liked MoS but never raved about it like he did for Nolan's movies), Perez and others, while keeping horrible artists and writers around, even giving top writer jobs to artists who cant write to save their life. But hey, Morrison's Batman is divisive and all the people that hate it sure loved Daniel's cookiecutter "catch teh penguin" stories, so...

DC lost mahmud asrar,JH williams, andrea sorrentino, kevin mcguire, even jeff lemire is leaving DC. damn when you have that good artist and writers you let them write what they want. Do a mini, a graphic novel, digital first. You don't lose all that talent in so short time.
nobody even remember these Daniel Batman stories.

at least this I remember for the wrong but hilarious reasons. but you can see that Didio and lee love the cookie cutter hero stories, they clearly doesn't like the way Azz did WW.
If they gave her the WW run with a writer that she choose (possible Rucka or Simone) she could stay.

Nicolla would never Pencil smww, she clearly doesn't like the ship and from what she said she doesn't like Soule portrayal. she would waste her pencil on the book.

[Sacred Knight]

You really need to learn how to not project your own preferences bias's onto other people and speak for them. She's a professional, there's absolutely nothing to suggest she'd stomp her foot and say "UH-UH, that's icky". She's a fan as well as an artist, and as a fan she has her preferences. Doesn't necessarily mean she'd refuse all work based on a direction she wasn't personally crazy about. For example she said her ideal Superman is the boy scout, yet lo and behold she drew the New 52 version as a fill-in during Perez's run.

[Dr. Hurt]

Asrar left too? Oh god, i loved that guy's art! Why did he leave?